


A Longer Fight Than Usual

by walkingonthestars



Category: Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: Angst, Early Partnership, I just really love deep ladynoir conversations okay, Missing Scene, Rogercop - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-20
Updated: 2020-05-20
Packaged: 2021-03-02 18:07:18
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,255
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24291040
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/walkingonthestars/pseuds/walkingonthestars
Summary: Rogercop declared Ladybug and Cat Noir outlaws at 10:30 in the morning. It was now 8:30 at night and getting dark out. Their families were probably worried.In which Ladybug and Cat Noir call their respective families to let them know they're okay, and Ladybug finds out that her partner's life is much more lonely than she'd imagined.Takes place in the later end of that ~ten hour time gap in Rogercop.
Relationships: Adrien Agreste | Chat Noir & Marinette Dupain-Cheng | Ladybug, Adrien Agreste | Chat Noir/Marinette Dupain-Cheng | Ladybug
Comments: 23
Kudos: 245





	A Longer Fight Than Usual

_"Ladybug and Cat Noir are now outlaws. They must be hunted down and taken into custody immediately_."

\-----------

They'd spent the past ten hours running, hiding, resting, attacking, and being attacked. Rogercop had proved much more difficult to defeat than expected. They were at a standstill now, with the akuma's "peacekeeping" force patrolling the streets, and the superhero duo hiding on a rooftop-- a blind spot from the rest of the city-- and waiting for the right time to make their next move.

Cat Noir stood at the peak of the roof and surveyed the street below. This part of Paris, normally rife with both natives and tourists at this time of day, was empty. It was eerie. Foreign. Cat Noir should have been put off, but even after ten whole hours of dealing with an akuma, he found that he was still optimistic. He was still sure that he and Ladybug would save the day as always.

When he turned to face his partner, however, he was surprised to find her with an expression that was anything but sure. Her brows were knit in anxiety, and her hands were up to her shoulders, fiddling with the ends of her pigtails. Her eyes went back and forth between the buildings they could see from their vantage point.

"Are you okay? You look nervous," Cat Noir said, taking a step towards her.

"I'm fine, it's just… it's getting dark out," Ladybug said.

Cat Noir's eyebrows raised. That wasn't what he was expecting her to say. "Somebody afraid of the dark?"

"What? No! God, Cat, it's not that. It's… akuma attacks never last this long. Usually I never have a big problem getting back home and dealing with questions from my parents afterwards." She looked down at the roof they were standing on. "But we've already been out for hours, and it's getting dark, and with all these scary police officers on the streets…"

"Your parents are probably wondering where you are," Cat Noir finished.

"I don't want them to worry," she confirmed quietly.

Cat Noir looked out at the rooftops below them. He wondered if any of them belonged to Ladybug's family. What did her family look like? She had said "my parents," not just "my mom" or "my dad." Already he could assume that her family was more functional than his, especially if she was right about them worrying. Did she have siblings? Younger or older? Would they be worried too?

Another thought overtook his brain. Was his family worried? His father was rather overprotective, but Adrien could never tell if it was from a place of love or a desire for control. Maybe it was both. Regardless, Gabriel and Nathalie were probably both aware that Adrien wasn't anywhere to be found, if not just because both of their schedules would be disrupted by his absence.

From the corner of his eye, Cat Noir noticed a large chimney on the roof they were standing on. An idea formed.

"Go behind that chimney," he said to Ladybug, who looked back up at him in confusion. "You can detransform and call them, tell them you're okay. I'll guard you. Without looking, of course," he added quickly.

Ladybug looked at the chimney, then back at him. "Are you sure?"

"It'll be fine. You can transform back in a snap if something goes wrong. Not that anything will-- I'll see to that." He flexed a bicep and winked.

Ladybug rolled her eyes, but with one last glance between him and the chimney, she seemed to make up her mind. "Okay. It'll just be a minute." She turned around and walked to the chimney, clearly restraining herself from running. Once she disappeared behind it, Cat Noir heard her say "spots off" and saw a flash of pink light.

Cat Noir sat down on the edge of the roof, his back to the chimney, and tried not to focus on the fact that Ladybug was detransformed just a few feet away from him. He surveyed the rooftops, making sure there was nobody who could see them. He strained his ears, searching for any suspicious sounds. A siren, a footstep, a--

"Hi, Maman?"

Cat Noir sat straight up. Then he heard muffled yelling, presumably from Ladybug's cell phone. As much as he told himself not to, he couldn't help but fixate on her conversation.

"Maman! Calm down, I'm alright," he heard Ladybug say with a laugh. He smiled. Ladybug's mother was apparently the kind you could laugh with, even in circumstances like this. Maybe his own mother would have gotten along with her.

"Are you guys at home right now?" Some more muffled talking that Cat Noir couldn't make out, this time with a male voice added in. Her father?

"Hi, Papa," Ladybug said, confirming Cat Noir's thoughts.

Ladybug was silent for a few moments as her parents talked. Cat Noir heard a few "mhmms" and "yeahs" on Ladybug's end, but couldn't tell what they were in reference to. Eventually, the female voice on the phone ended a sentence with an upturned pitch. A question.

"Yeah!" Ladybug said, a little louder than she had been so far. "I'm just, uh, with a friend right now."

Cat Noir smiled. He wondered if her parents would question her too much on who this friend was.

"Yeah, I was with him when the akuma attacked, and--"

The two voices on the phone interrupted her. For the first time listening to this conversation, he could make out a word from her parents. Him?!

"Guys! Calm down!" Ladybug frantically tried to take back control of the conversation. Cat Noir tried to stifle his laughter as he imagined how red his lady's face probably was.

"Yes, him!" she said. "Yes, a boy! It's not that big a deal!"

Suddenly, Cat Noir froze. The voices on the phone would become angry now, wouldn't they? He cringed, waiting in anxiety for them to scold her for telling them it's not a big deal. We make the rules, they'd say. It is a big deal if we say it is. As soon as you get home you're grounded.

He was surprised to hear laughter from behind the chimney.

"Papaaa!" Ladybug whined through a fit of giggles. From the other side of the phone, Cat Noir could hear a laugh-- a booming laugh that, if it wasn't coming from a cell phone that was behind a stone chimney a few feet away from him, would probably have shaken his eardrums. Some more lighthearted words-- which he still couldn't discern-- rang from the phone, and Ladybug gave a few more giggles before she spoke again.

"Alright, I'll tell him," she said, and Cat Noir could hear the smile in her voice. "I should go now. I just wanted to let you guys know I was okay." Silence on her end, then, "it probably won't be much longer. Most akuma attacks never last this long, I feel like this is just an outlier. Ladybug and Cat Noir have got this," she added, and Cat Noir smiled.

"Alright, I'll see you guys when it's all over. Love you, stay safe," she said, and Cat Noir could hear them repeat the sendoff back to her.

A few seconds passed during which Cat Noir could hear neither Ladybug nor her parents on the phone. Then he heard a quiet "spots on," saw another flash of pink light from his peripheral vision, and waited for her to sit down next to him. When she did, his heart swelled as he noticed the smile on her face and the blush that coated her cheeks, probably residual from when her father interrogated her about the mystery boy she was staying with.

"I told my parents I was staying at a friend's house," Ladybug said. She twirled one of the ribbons in her pigtails. "Apparently you're welcome in our house if you ever need a place to go during an akuma attack. You know, as a thank you for letting me stay with you during this one." She gave a wry smile. "Obviously, we can't ever take them up on that offer, but my parents wanted me to tell you that."

"O-oh," Cat Noir stuttered. He had wondered what it was that Ladybug promised her parents she'd tell him, but that was the last thing he'd expected. He felt a flurry of emotions, most of them unidentifiable.

Ladybug pointed to the chimney. "Your turn," she said.

Cat Noir blinked. "My turn to…?"

The smile in her eyes didn't leave completely, but they became tinged with questioning. "To call your family. They need to know you're okay, too."

"Right," he said awkwardly, and picked himself up from the edge of the roof. Slowly, he made his way to the chimney, forcing himself not to look back at Ladybug before he went behind it. Dread overcame him as he realized that since he was able to hear most of Ladybug's conversation with her parents, she would also be able to hear his conversation. That is, if there even was a conversation. There was no guarantee Nathalie would pick up.

"Claws in," he whispered, and he felt the familiar breeze of his detransformation. In front of him, Plagg appeared, looking tired and carefree as usual.

"Well! That one took longer than expected, but I guess it's over now. And you didn't even need your Cataclysm! Good job. Where's the cheese?" Plagg looked around. "Wait, this isn't your room."

"It's not over, Plagg. I'm just taking a minute to call Nat--" Adrien stopped, remembering that Ladybug could probably hear him. He shouldn't say any names. "To call my parents."

Plagg raised an eyebrow in typical sarcastic fashion, but couldn't hide his concern. "Your parents, plural?"

"Just to let them know I'm alright," Adrien muttered, pulling out his phone and clicking Nathalie's name in his contacts. He put the phone to his ear and listened to the first ring, then the second, as Plagg floated a few feet away to give him space.

She picked up on the third ring. "Adrien, where are you? It's almost dark out. You were supposed to be home immediately after school."

Adrien smiled despite her harsh tone. At least he knew she was worried, in her own way. "Sorry, there was an akuma attack. Is an akuma attack, actually. It's still going on."

"Yes, this one does seem to be going on much longer than usual. I wonder why that is,” she mused.

"Are-- are you doing alright?" Adrien asked. He knew the question would make her uncomfortable-- Nathalie never talked about her own life or feelings with him-- but he couldn't get his mind off the fact that Ladybug was probably listening. Anything he could say to make it seem like he was part of a functional family, he would.

"I'm fine," Nathalie said with what sounded like confusion and slight irritability. "I'm in the mansion, where the security is better than most of Paris. Which is why you should be here as well. Where exactly are you, Adrien?"

"I'm with a friend," he said, mirroring Ladybug's words from earlier.

"Which friend? The DJ boy?"

"No, not him. Just… someone else from school."

"Does this friend have a name, Adrien?"

"Uh…" Adrien panicked, running his free hand through his hair as he thought about how to get out of this. "I'm… not actually with a friend. I'm sorry, I shouldn’t have lied. I'm safe, though, don't worry."

Nathalie sighed. "I don't like the idea of you being alone during an akuma attack."

Adrien smiled again. That sounded like something Ladybug's parents would say, from the two minute impression he got of them. "I know, I'm sorry. But I really am safe, I promise." He changed the subject. "Is father alright?"

"Your father… has been absorbed in his work for the better part of the day. I'd be surprised if he even knew there was an attack happening right now, even with the security on."

Adrien deflated. "So he hasn't asked about me at all?" He immediately regretted that question. If Ladybug hadn't realized by now how stiff and cold his family situation was compared to hers, she certainly would realize it after she heard that.

"Your father will be relieved to know that you're safe, Adrien." A perfect deflection from Nathalie as always. Adrien sighed.

"Okay. Well… I'll see you later, then." Adrien remembered again that Ladybug was probably listening, and braced himself. "Love you."

"Lo…" That had caught Nathalie off guard, Adrien could tell. He heard her clear her throat before she responded. "Love you too. Stay safe.” And with that, Nathalie hung up, leaving Adrien to forlornly place his phone back into his pocket as Plagg floated closer to him again.

“I take it you’re transforming again?” the kwami asked.

“We haven’t defeated Rogercop yet,” Adrien reminded him. “Claws out!”

Cat Noir took a second to exhale before coming out from behind the chimney. As he expected, Ladybug was still sitting on the edge of the roof, her back turned away from him. And as he expected, when he walked closer to her and sat back down next to her, he noticed that she was no longer smiling.

The negativity in his life was contagious, he thought. His conversation with Nathalie had barely lasted a minute, but the discomfort that came from it was apparently strong enough to affect Ladybug, who just moments before had been practically overflowing with love from her own family. Now she was sitting with her shoulders slightly hunched, looking down and away from Cat Noir as she traced circles on the shingles of the roof with her finger. There was no doubt she’d overheard his end of the conversation. He replayed his words in his mind, trying to find something that would prove to her-- to himself-- that his life wasn't as depressing as it probably seemed. But between the despondent voice he'd used the whole time and the general formal nature of the exchange, he was having trouble.

"Is your mom okay?" Ladybug asked suddenly.

"My-- what?" Cat Noir choked.

Ladybug averted her eyes further, if that was even possible. "Sorry, I sort of… overheard you."

"Oh," he said dumbly, then collected his thoughts a bit. "It's fine-- I heard you talking too. I didn't hear anything your parents said," he added quickly, "just you."

Ladybug hummed her acknowledgement. "Yeah, I couldn't hear anything your mom was saying. Well," she said, "I'm just assuming that was your mom. It sounded like a woman's voice."

"I… yeah," Cat Noir gulped. "My mom. She's okay."

Immediately, he was almost incapacitated with two very strong emotions. Guilt at betraying his own mother in favor of Nathalie, and a strange sense of pride at telling somebody that Nathalie was indeed his mother. It was true that she was a sort of mother figure to him-- a very reserved, impersonal mother figure, but one nonetheless. But he couldn't give up on his actual mother, not when there was still a chance that she could come back. Maybe if he knew how or why she'd disappeared-- if he knew whether or not she was even alive-- he'd be more okay with telling Ladybug that that was his mother on the phone.

"I'm sorry," Ladybug blurted, and for a second Cat Noir was paranoid that he'd spoken his thoughts out loud. He held his breath. "I shouldn't have said anything. I just thought I should ask… you seemed kind of upset…" she trailed off, leaving Cat Noir scrambling for something to say to reassure her.

"It's fine, Ladybug, I'm not really upset. That's just... kind of how I am with my family."

Ladybug finally looked at him, but from her horribly surprised expression, he could tell that his words hadn't made her feel better at all.

"I mean-- you know--" he stammered, trying to reassure her without outright lying to her. "I heard your parents talking-- just their voices, I didn't hear any of the words, like I said-- and they just seemed so… nice? And you came out smiling after talking to them, and… my family just isn't like that. It's not a bad thing, really, it's just who they are."

"Oh," Ladybug whispered. She cleared her throat. "Sorry, that's just… not really how I imagined your family."

Cat Noir sighed, but then he registered what she'd just said. He smiled. "So you've imagined my family before?"

Ladybug stiffened. "Well-- not obsessively. I mean, you're my partner, and I know we haven't been doing this very long, but we already spend so much time together. And I know I'm not supposed to know anything about you, but I guess I sometimes think about what your life is like when you're not Cat Noir."

Cat Noir laughed, not completely convinced. Then he leaned close to her. "So, what are they like?"

"What are who like?"

"My imaginary family. My life. What is it like in your head?"

Ladybug looked like a deer in headlights as she tried to back out of the question. "Cat Noir, we can't find out anything about each other's lives--"

"What would we be finding out? You're just telling me what you think my life is like. I won't confirm or deny anything."

He watched in anticipation as she mulled over the idea in her head, until she finally gave a small, mischievous smile and said, "I guess it couldn't hurt."

"Alright!" the black-clad superhero said, bringing his legs up to his chest and turning to face Ladybug, as if she were a C.P. teacher reading him a story. She rolled her eyes at him, but blushed as she began talking.

"Well, I always imagined that you were, like, the middle child of a bunch of siblings. It would explain why you're so hungry for attention all the time," she said with a smirk. All Cat Noir could do was smile. He'd always wanted siblings.

Ladybug turned away from him, facing the city skyline now. "I imagined that your parents both work, and leave you or some of your older siblings to babysit a lot. I feel like you'd wrestle with them and break your mom's favorite vase or something, and then you'd all have to scramble to fix it before she got home.

"To be honest, I always imagined your house-- apartment?-- as being kind of small." Ladybug became more solemn as she said, "the way you always look when you're vaulting around the city on your baton… it's like you're revelling in the open space, the freedom to move around as you please. I feel like that would come from living in a small house with a lot of people.

"I feel like…" Ladybug seemed to brace herself for something. "Okay, don't take this the wrong way, but I always imagined that you're not the best student at school. Not because you're not smart," she assured him, briefly glancing at him before turning back around, "because I know that you are. But you seem like you'd be the class clown type of kid. Or the kind of kid who doesn't bother doing work that doesn't mean anything to him. And your teachers would always be like, 'come on, Cat Noir, I know you're capable of doing this assignment, but you have to actually try!' Except they wouldn't call you Cat Noir, obviously.

"And your parents would of course be sort of hard on you about your grades, but they've got, like, five other kids to worry about-- I don't know, I never thought about the exact number of siblings I think you have-- so they can't really be that focused on you. So they mostly give you your space, which is good because you can go be Cat Noir whenever you need to be.

"And speaking of you being Cat Noir…" she looked down at her lap. "I don't know how I'd feel about this if it were true, but I always had this little thought that one of your siblings knew about your identity, and that they help you out with excuses and alibis for akuma attacks. And maybe you go home after patrol and talk their ear off about me, and they're like, 'for God's sake, Cat Noir, I'm sick of hearing about Ladybug.' But I’m probably just being indulgent.

"So… yeah," Ladybug finished. "That's the gist of it, I guess." She turned around to face him. "Now, tell me how you imagine my-- oh my gosh, Kitty, are you okay?!"

Cat Noir hadn't noticed the tears streaming down his face until his lady looked at him with wild eyes and held out shaking hands towards him, looking like she wanted to grab him into a hug but terrified that she was the one who caused his despair in the first place. Cat Noir quickly wiped his face in a weak attempt to assure her that she did nothing wrong.

"I'm good-- it's just--" He struggled to get more than two words out at a time as he worked to control his breathing. With an infuriatingly childlike sniffle, he let out a shaky breath and collected himself enough to say, "that-- that all sounds really nice."

"Oh, minou," Ladybug said, giving in to her obvious desire and pulling him into a hug. She held him tight as she said, "I shouldn't have said anything. Now I'm remembering your phone call with your mom--" Cat Noir winced as she said the word "mom," thankful that Ladybug couldn't see his face right now-- "and-- and how you sounded the whole time-- and when you asked about your dad." Then she groaned and said, "God, I'm probably just making things worse by talking about it, aren't I?"

"You're not, Ladybug," Cat Noir said, and he was surprised to find that he was telling the truth. "You're telling me that you care about me. Why would I be upset at that?" He sniffled again and pulled away from the hug to look at her. "I know I said I wouldn't confirm or deny anything, but you can probably tell by this point that my life isn't exactly how you imagined it."

Ladybug sniffled in response, and Cat Noir continued. "But it's improved tenfold since I became Cat Noir and met you. Seriously, Ladybug," Cat Noir said, looking into her eyes, "the only thing you've done since entering my life is make it better." He grabbed her hand. "As much as I'd love to have crazy siblings and lenient parents, I don't need any of that as long as I have you, and this." He gestured to the rooftops at that last word-- the city of Paris from a view only the two of them had come to know personally.

At that point, something in the distance caught his eye. He squinted, and upon figuring out what it was, he stiffened, immediately on guard. "Well, maybe not that."

A helicopter-- no, multiple helicopters were patrolling the skies, clearly on the lookout for the two superheroes. The two outlaws. Cat Noir stood up and quickly dragged Ladybug behind the chimney they had both talked to their families behind. It should have felt like a more poetic moment-- here they were, together, sitting behind the structure that had previously served to keep them separated while one was detransformed. But Cat Noir was back in crime-fighting mode, and didn't have time to think of poetry.

"Would you still think me a professional if I told you I had forgotten we were in the middle of an active akuma attack?" he asked Ladybug, the usual sardonic tone back in his voice. It felt strange to talk like that after having such a heart-to-heart with Ladybug, but he couldn't help it.

"I'd be a hypocrite if I judged you," she mumbled, stealing a glance around the chimney to watch the helicopters. Cat Noir felt a strong wave of annoyance as he recalled everything that had happened earlier that day.

"So now we're the nation's most wanted felons?" he questioned with a scowl, finding the rapidly increasing number of helicopters in the sky rather ridiculous.

"But we haven't done anything!" Ladybug whined. She didn't need to tell him twice.

"Exactly, you can't accuse someone without proof! We should go and defend ourselves in a court of law!" He stood up and posed with an outstretched arm for emphasis as he said this. He was feeling like himself again-- the Cat Noir that handled situations with flair and sass. It was hard for him to believe he'd been crying in his lady's arms not a minute before.

Ladybug seemed to be back to her usual self as well, he noticed. "Not while Rogercop's the chief of justice," she countered, standing up next to him with a similar air of sass.

As energizing as he found Ladybug's boldness, he couldn't help but sigh at the situation they were in. "How many times have we saved Paris?"

Ladybug put a finger to her lip, and Cat Noir could tell from her expression that she was formulating a plan. He felt a smile form on his own lips as he watched her think. He wondered how often she made this face in her normal life.

A second passed, and she looked up, a look of resolution on her face. "We're still saving Paris," she said.

And with a smile that told him they were going to win this battle, she relayed to him her plan.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm hamsternamedmarinette on Tumblr!


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